In a message dated 7/3/2000 7:39:11 PM, bandstra@ese.ogi.edu writes:
<< Bob,
Your trilobite example indicates to me that "intelligent design" simply
means that nature is complex and interconnected. So complex that one may
have a difficult time excepting the hypothesis that undirected events are
responsible. Is this what you mean to convey?
(snip)
If ID is something different than the idea that the world is
mind-bogglingly complex then some sort of definition would be quite helpful
in trying to understand the various claims that are being made.
>>
Joel,
Yes, I have a difficult time accepting (I gather that's the word you mean)
the hypothesis that undirected events are responsible for the formation of
the biconvex lens of the trilobite eye. I find it mind-bogglingly complex.
If your mind isn't boggled by it, I wonder why.
Here's what I find difficult to understand. Riccardo Levi-Straus (
_Trilobites_, 1993) whose work I quoted, gives no indication of being a
Christian or even religious; yet he writes with unabashed wonder at the
detailed design of the biconvex trilobite eye. Yet you dismiss the wonder of
it with words that it "simply means that nature is complex and
interconnected." I do not understand your dismissive attitude toward
something as mind boggling as this.
I'm no paleontologist. I have never seen a fossil trilobite. (I have one
from Morocco that purports to be one, but I suspect it may be a fake tourist
souvenir.) But I have read Levi-Straus' book carefully. It is packed with
sensational photos of trilobites. It also contains photos of the biconvex
lens found in the trilobite, and diagrams of Huygens and Descartes analyses
of it. I find the book stands in stark contrast to your dismissive attitude.
If you have not read or glanced at anything describing the trilobite eye you
are missing something very good. It might help you see something
specifically mind-boggling that may have escaped your attention in nature.
You wrote, "Perhaps you could say what it is about the trilobite eye that
makes it a
good example of this intelligent design business." First, it is irreducibly
complex. Remove one of the lens, or the Huygen's curved interface between
them, and the sharp focus is lost. Second, AFAIK there is no physical or
chemical or biological law, or combination of them, that can account for the
formation of the biconvexity.
Third, four Darwinian pathways have been identified that might account for
the lens in Darwinian terms. (A) Serial direct Darwinian evolution, i.e.,
one mutation at a time. This is woefully inadequate to account for the
design. Mivart's dilemma applies here. It states that natural selection is
incompetent to account for incipient stages of useful structures, i. e., it
does not account for the incipient stages of biconvexity, before the two lens
are fully functional. Can a half-functional biconvex lens be selected by the
environment as adaptive? While the biconvex lens may have developed from the
simpler lens of other species of trilobites, no intermediate stages leading
up to the biconvex lens have been found. While this is negative evidence, it
holds until positive evidence is found. (B) Parallel direct Darwinian
evolution--approximately synchronous changes in more than one component so
that modification to other components always occurs before the total
modification to any one component has become significant--is inadequate.
Mivart's dilemma applies here also. (C) Adoption from a different function.
This does not address the formation of the biconvex lens since there is no
other function from which it might have developed, except possibly another
eye. (D) Elimination of function redundancy. There is no more complex lens
of which the biconvex lens is a simplification.
In another note I reported on the Darwinian interpretation that Levi-Straus
gave of the biconvex trilobite eye. He stated, "What we would like to hear,
to appease our Darwinian upbringing, is that new visual structures were
evolved in response to new environmental pressures as a means of survival."
As possibilities he suggests that it "allowed the trilobite to see at some
depth in sea, at dusk, or in turbid water." He added the advantage that
they provided a prompter recognition of and response to impending danger. To
this hypothetical mix he adds “mating may have proven more effective with
sharper images". (p. 59)
The question I raised in another note. Which alternative explanation do you
prefer--the Darwinian ones I gave above, or the one of intelligent design?
Perhaps you know of other Darwinian explanation of pathways whereby the
biconvex lens might have followed in becoming fully functional. You
apparently accept the hypothesis that undirected events are responsible for
the trilobite eye. I am open to hearing about them.
Regards,
Bob
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